Update: Florida passes legislation for age verification

Florida age verification

26 March 2024, Florida Governor Ron De Santis has signed into law, legislation that requires pornography websites and others hosting content “harmful to minors” to provide online age verification.

In January 2024, Florida’s lower chamber voted unanimously for legislation (HB 3) that pushes publishers to perform reasonable age verification. Right now, most sites simply ask users to press a button verifying they are of age.

No lawmakers argued against the bill on the floor, and the bill passed on a 119-0 vote. 

A similar bill (SB 1792) has been filed in the Senate by Sen. Erin Grall, a Fort Pierce Republican, but has yet to be heard on a Senate Judiciary Committee agenda.

US Court Upholds Texas Law Mandating Age Verification for Online Porn

age verification software

A federal appeals court has upheld a Texas law mandating that pornography websites verify that their users are adults, with age verification software, however it struck down a part of the law requiring them to display health warnings about their content.

The 2-1 decision from the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late on Thursday 7th March overturned a lower court ruling blocking the law, which had been challenged in court by pornography producers.

Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, writing for the majority on Thursday, said online age verification was equivalent to requiring in-person age verification to buy pornographic magazines, which has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Treating it differently “implies that the invention of the Internet somehow reduced the scope of the state’s ability to protect children,” he wrote.

AgeGO provides a complete age verification solution for adult websites, that ensures total privacy for end users. Click here for more information.

 

Age verification law update in Indiana and Nebraska

Indiana state age verification legislation update

Adult websites will need stronger age verification measures under a bill headed to the Indiana House floor.

SB 17 easily cleared a House committee Wednesday. The bill would require adult sites to verify their customers’ ages with a mobile driver’s license or government ID (which Indiana doesn’t provide), or through a third-party service that verifies the customer’s age.

Nebraska stage age verification update

A Nebraska legislative committee heard testimony Wednesday 21 February 2024 over a bill that would limit young people’s access to online pornographic content by verifying a user is at least 18 years old.

The Legislative Bill 1092, introduced by State Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil, he commented “It is to protect our most vulnerable women and children.” He said he modeled his legislation after similar efforts passed in Utah, Louisiana and Arkansas.

“We’re not trying to do something new here,” Murman told the Judiciary Committee. “We’re trying to do what’s been done in other states … and what’s been successful in other states.”

AgeGO provides a complete age verification solution for adult websites, that ensures total privacy for end users. Click here for more information.

 

Tennessee Lawmaker Introduces Age-Verification Bill to Protect Children from Online Adult Content

State Representative. Patsy Hazlewood (R) in Tennessee has introduced legislation to implement age-verification requirements to protect children from being exposed to online pornography. The “Protect Tennessee Minors Act, would mandate that pornography distributors have in place age-verification measures to ensure minors are barred from accessing sexually explicit content.

The legislative proposal is similar to laws already in place in Utah and Virginia, where the largest pornography distributor — Pornhub — is inaccessible.

Hazlewood’s legislation would require online pornography companies to match a user profile image to a verified government-issued I.D. Sites that don’t follow through with the requirement would be charged with Class C felonies, up to 15 years in prison, and $10,000 fines.

UK Online Safety Bill passes Parliament and is now ready to become law – Updated 30 October 2023

Update: The Online Safety Bill has been given Royal Ascent and is now the law in the UK.

The Online Safety Bill has been signed off by the Houses of Parliament in the UK and will become law soon. The bill claims that it will make the UK the safest place in the world to be online, by placing new duties on social media companies. Through debate, the UK Government states that the bill has firmer protections for children, more control for adults and clarity for social platforms. On 19th September 2023, the Online Safety Bill passed its final Parliamentary debate and is now ready to become law.

The bill takes a zero-tolerance approach to protecting children and makes sure social media platforms are held responsible for the content they host. If they do not act rapidly to prevent and remove illegal content and stop children seeing material that is harmful to them, such as bullying, they will face significant fines that could reach billions of pounds. In some cases, their bosses may even face prison.

The bill has undergone considerable parliamentary scrutiny in both the lower and upper Houses of Parliament.

Read the full UK Government press release.

AgeGO provides a complete age verification solution for adult websites, that ensures total privacy for end users. Click here for more information.

 

Indiana to introduce age verification for adult sites

age verification

Work has begun on 2024 legislation that would require a website operator to use age verification methods on websites that display material harmful to minors. It would also make it a Class A misdemeanor for website operators who knowingly or intentionally publish an adult website without reasonable age verification methods. The penalty would be increased to a Level 6 felony if the operator has a prior violation or conviction.

The legislation builds on House Enrolled Act 1447, which requires school libraries to adopt policies and procedures concerning material alleged to be obscene or harmful to minors.

This legislation is still being developed, but is anticipated to be officially filed for the 2024 legislative session this autumn.

AgeGO provides a complete age verification solution for adult websites, that ensures total privacy for end users. Click here for more information.

 

Spanish politicians push for age verification of adult website

age verification

Local Spanish politicians in the southern region of Andalucia are demanding anti-porn legislation to mirror current initiatives in France, Germany, Utah and even China. The group named ‘Consejo Audiovisual de Andalucía (CAA)’ organized a conference in May 2023 to address the supposed threat to minors posed by internet pornography. Tech journalist Enrique Benítez, from the influential Prensa Ibérica media conglomerate, participated and afterward published an editorial in Prensa Ibérica’s flagship newspaper El Periodico de España, advocating for local laws to follow the lead of France and the U.K. in threatening to block adult websites unless they implement age verification.

Deeming it “unfair” to expect families to monitor minors’ access to online content, Benítez proposed shifting the responsibility to online platforms. Unlike the U.S., Europe has nothing resembling Section 230 liability protections over user-generated content.

AgeGO provides a complete age verification solution for adult websites, that ensures total privacy for end users. Click here for more information.

 

Louisiana will fine adult websites with no age verification

The Louisiana house voted 101-1 to pass House Bill 77, which would let the state attorney general pursue civil penalties against companies that do not comply with a law that requires pornography websites to verify the age of its users.

HB 77 was introduced by local politician Laurie Schlegel (R-Matairie), who is behind Louisiana’s Act 440, the law that took effect Jan. 1 and requires age verification for any website that contains 33.3% or more pornographic material.

HB 77 calls for investigation and pursuit of actions for commercial entities that knowingly and intentionally publish or distribute material harmful to minors and that fail to perform reasonable age verification.

Republicans throughout the country are currently seeking to outlaw all adult content by overturning the 1973 “Miller Test” differentiating First Amendment-protected sexual material from illegal “obscene” material produced to appeal to “a prurient interest.”

In an amendment to this blog post 6 June 2023:

The Senate gave unanimous final passage to a bill Saturday that would allow the Louisiana attorney general to investigate and fine — up to $5,000 a day — pornographic websites that do not comply with the age verification law. For entities that “knowingly failed” to follow the law, they face an additional civil penalty of $10,000 per violation, according to language in the legislation.

The bill will now be sent to Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who is expected to sign it into law.

Rep. Laurie Schlegel, the Republican who authored the age verification law, which went into effect at the start of this year, and the companion bill, said both pieces of legislation are intended to “protect children from the dangers of online pornography.”

AgeGO provides a complete age verification solution for adult websites, that ensures total privacy for end users. Click here for more information.

US State Virginia passes age verification law to view adult websites

Virginia lawmakers have passed a law that requires adult websites to use more stringent age verification measures to prevent access by minors. Under the bill SB1515, adult websites must implement advanced verification methods, requiring users to provide government-issued IDs, biometric scans or submit to age verification software.
The new law applies to websites where at least 33.3% of its content can be considered material harmful to minors.

In the bill, this is defined as any description or representation of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse when it (i) appeals to the prurient, shameful, or morbid interest of minors, (ii) is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors, and (iii) is, when taken as a whole, lacking in serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

The bill does not mention how the state would enforce the new law when most adult websites operate outside of the jurisdiction of Virginia and the United States. On 1 January 2023, similar bills went into effect in US states Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Utah.

AgeGO provides a complete age verification solution for adult websites, that ensures total privacy for end users. Click here for more information.

US States introducing Age Verification Bills

US States introducing Age Verification Bills

Several bills are underway in the US to limit the exposure of under 18 year olds to seeing online pornography. Here is the latest update for 4 US states:

Louisiana

Louisiana’s HB142, which was sponsored by local politician Laurie Schlegel, went into effect on 1st January 2023. Although it is still unclear what compliance with the law would look like for out-of-state and non-U.S.-based websites. Schlegel’s law requires age verification for any website that contains 33.3% or more pornographic material.

Arkansas

Two Republican state senators in Arkansas have introduced a bill requiring age verification before entering a website offering pornography. Senate Bill 66, which proposes a Protection of Minors from Distribution of Harmful Material Act, is sponsored by Sen. Tyler Dees (R-Siloam Springs) and Sen. Jim Petty (R-Van Buren). The proposed bill requires a digitized identification card to prove that anyone from Arkansas trying to enter a pornography website is over 18. The bill includes the senators’ definition of what kinds of material would constitute “pornography,” and mandates that any website with over 23.33% of its material meeting the pornography description institute age verification.

Mississippi 

A Republican state senator in Mississippi has introduced a copycat bill patterned after the Louisiana state law that mandates age verification for websites featuring pornographic content. Sen. Nicole Boyd (R-Oxford) introduced Senate Bill 2346, which was approved by the Mississippi Senate Judiciary B Committee. SB 2346 would hold liable any commercial entity that disseminates pornographic material and doesn’t perform reasonable age verification. The Mississippi bill is heading to the State Senate floor, where it will have to be approved before 9th February 2023 to be sent to the House.

Utah 

Rep. Jordan Teuscher (R) and Sen. Michael McKell introduced HB 311 and SB 152, respectively. SB 152 would require social media companies to verify the age of any Utah resident seeking to use or create an account on social media platforms. The rule would take effect 1st January 2024. Moreover, should a platform determine that a user is a minor — defined in both bills as anyone under 18 — SB 152 would then require social media companies to give parents access to their kids’ accounts.

AgeGO provides a complete age verification solution for adult websites, that ensures total privacy for end users. Click here for more information.